West◊lischerKunstverein

„ „Creatures of the Mud“21.05.-03.07.2016

/ English

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PUBLICATION

Texts: Lena Johanna Reisner, Kristina ScepanskiTranslation: Tim ConnellCopy-editing: Jenni Henke, Dr. Hanns-Peter ReisnerDesign: Dan SolbachPhotos: Thorsten Arendt, Madison Bycroft (p. 13), Liza Dieckwisch (p. 22), Gabó Bartha (pp. 24–25)

EXHIBITION

“Creatures of the Mud”Gabó Bartha, Madison Bycroft, Liza Dieckwisch, Tue Greenfort, Mehreen Murtaza21 May-3 July 2016Westfälischer Kunstverein

Curator: Lena Johanna Reisner, guest curator plugin Schloss RingenbergDirector: Kristina ScepanskiCoordination: Jenni HenkeAdministration: Tono DreßenAssistant: Amelie Jörden Installation: Anne Krönker, Bernhard Sicking, Robin Völkert, Lisa WiemesGallery assistant: Bernhard Sicking

The artists, the curator and the team at Westfälischer Kunstverein would like to thank:Dr. Markus Bertling, Stefan Bienas, Dr. Gudrun Bott, Erwin Dieckmann, Elke Gruhn, Jürgen Hausfeld, Tobias Haelke, Michael Heym, Dr. Philipp Kleinmichel, Dr. Eckhard Kluth, Gila Kolb, Joram Kraaijeveld, Bram Kuypers, Marcus Lütkemeyer, Margret Reisner, Spedition Theodor Schulz GmbH und Co.KG, Samuel Treindl, Herbert Voigt, Elfi Weissig, Max Wigger and Birgit Willenbrink as well as the Botanical Garden of the University of Münster for its loans.

“Creatures of the Mud” is part of the INTERREG VA project plugin, based at Schloss Ringenberg (schloss-ringen-berg.de). Schloss Ringenberg offers stipends for artists and curators from Germany and The Netherlands in connec-tion with German and Dutch art insti-tutions. The Westfälischer Kunstverein is one of this year’s project part-ners. plugin is funded by the EU and INTERREG partners under the umbrella of the INTERREG-programme.

The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in Berlin.

Westfälischer Kunstverein is supported by the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe and the City of Münster.

© 2017 Westfälischer Kunstverein, the artists

Rothenburg 30,48143 MünsterT: +49 251 46157F: +49 251 45479info@westfaelischer-kunstverein.de

The group show “Creatures of the Mud” is the product of a collaboration between Westfälischer Kunstverein and Schloss Ringenberg, a studio and exhibition centre in Hamminkeln that offers residency stipends to artists and curators. Two curators from North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands reside for six months in the castle and work on two different exhibition proj-ects. One exhibition takes place in the castle, and the other is staged on the premises of a partner institution within North Rhine-Westphalia or the Netherlands. The Westfälischer Kunst- verein happens to be one of the partners this year and is stag-ing an exhibition entitled “Creatures of the Mud” featuring the work of the stipend holder, Lena Johanna Reisner (b. 1987, D) and which focuses upon the means of communication and inter-action between various species. Her colleague, Joram Kraai-jeveld (b. 1984, NL) stages his show “Race to the Bottom” at Schloss Ringenberg.

A Schloss Ringenberg stipend not only offers a well-equipped place in which to work and refuge for young curators, but it also endeavours, via the liaison with art institutions in the surrounding area, to give them an intensive insight into the practical side of things. Thus, during the past few weeks and months, we have accompanied Lena Johanna Reisner’s prepara-tions for her show with us, opening a few doors whenever neces-sary and introducing her to a number of interesting residents of Münster, such as Dr. Eckhard Kluth, the curator for the art collection at the University of Münster (WWU), Mr Herbert Voigt, the technical director of the Botanical Gardens at the WWU and Dr. Markus Bertling, director of the Museum for Geology and Paelontology. They are all deserving of our heart-felt thanks for their openness, for their willingness to take part in many discussions and their expertise in their respective fields.

Naturally, we should all like to thank Lena Johanna Reisner for this exhibition which focuses upon a theme that has been in the air for some time now and which, in this instance, has found a truly beautiful, associative and poetic form.

Kristina Scepanski

One of the exhibition’s important themes centres on the way in which we generate and preserve knowledge by means of scienti-fic, speculative, mythical, aesthetic, research-based and discursive processes. In her treatise on Agential Realism, theoretical physicist Karen Barad proposes the close intercon-nectedness of being and knowledge. The production of knowledge doesn’t merely generate facts; the practices of knowledge pro-duction should rather be understood as “material entanglements” that cooperate in the permanent configuration and reconfigura-tion of the world.4 Thinking, theorising and observing are thus less modes of description and more forms of intra-action in the midst of and as part of the world.5 Against this backdrop, the question regarding our responsibilities for our agencies oper-ates on a wholly new level. It opens up a vista upon a terrain of possibility and opportunity geared towards re-situating ourselves in this extraordinarily dynamic and lively network which “we” undoubtedly share with other agents.

The arrangement of the artistic elements in “Creatures of the Mud” is motivated by the idea of an ecology and interaction in the exhibition space, in which the narratives being related and the sensibilities they generate, form a mutual cosmos. The space is thus populated by all manner of entities, such as fictional figures, mythical forms, bacteria, marine organisms, synthetic materials, insects, vegetables, as well as living individuals in the truest sense of the word.

4 Cf. Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (London 2007), p. 91.

5 Ibid. p. 90.

“Creatures of the Mud” The phrase “Creatures of the Mud” has something monstrous about it, indeed, there is nothing especially cuddly about the ‘eco-logical thought’ as Timothy Morton describes it: “The ecologi-cal thought imagines interconnectedness which I call the mesh.”1 This "mesh" is nothing less than the interconnectedness of absolutely all living and non-living entities on Planet Earth and much, much further afield. It is a powerful construct without a clear beginning or end, devoid of linearity or clus-ters of sub-groups in line with an evolutionary scheme. The logic of the mesh decrees that each point is equally at the centre and the periphery of a system.

“I’m a creature of the mud, not the sky.”2

This statement by the biologist and historian of science, Donna J. Haraway, contains a number of aspects that could be consid-ered paradigmatic for an ecological or worldly philosophy. The orientation towards “mud” at once affirms the viscerality and materiality of individual existence, as well as situating human existence within the context of Earth as a whole and the inter-actions and intra-actions with other species. At the same time, this reference is a liberation from a tradition in European philosophy in which – according to René Descartes – the dual-isms of body and spirit, self and the world are thought of as separate entities. “To be one is always to become with many,”3 effectively means that subjectivity, identity and, even more fundamentally, vitality do not arise in opposition to one an-other, but in a process of ongoing, renewed mutual becoming. The fact that mud or viscerality isn’t a simple figure as such, but a highly complex reality, emerges from Haraway’s analysis and her fascination for genomes, bacteria, fungi, symbionts and all manner of species with whom we share this world.

The works of the artists featured in the exhibition “Creatures of the Mud” resonate with these ideas and probe the consequenc-es of this insight in a variety of ways. For example, our rela-tionships with other species are approached on an extremely direct level as well as the forms of interdependence that arise from such interconnectedness and the responsibilities it im-plies. Far from being that mysterious Other, the ‘monstrous’ turns out to be a simply incomprehensible constellation of being of which we are part and which demands both our subjec-tivity as well as our sensibility.

1 Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, 2010), p. 15.2 Donna J. Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis, 2008), p. 3.3 Ibid., p. 90.

MEHREEN MURTAZA,… how will you conduct yourself in the company of trees, 2015-16,TUE GREENFORT, Aasee Water Filtration, 2007

MEHREEN MURTAZA(b. 1986, PK)

For her installation “… how will you conduct yourself in the company of trees”, Mehreen Murtaza has made use of the amply-lit foyer in which she has placed plants from the University of Münster’s Botanical Garden. Ivy, cacti, palm trees, oleanders and other shrubs have been hooked up to a computer by a series of leads as though part of a scientific experiment. The appara-tus is a simple construction for measuring low voltage electri-cal activity on a cellular level.

For a long time, the limited ability for plants to move or to react to stimuli was associated with an overall deficit in sensory perception. Touch me nots, vines and carnivorous plants – so-called sensitive, reactive plants – were considered to be exceptions to the rule. Towards the end of the nineteenth cen-tury, these plants began to arouse interest among a growing number of scientists. Experiments conducted upon plants of this kind showed that electro-physiological signal processing not only takes place in animal cells, but in plant cells, too. Not until the nineteen sixties did it become clear that ordinary plants also showed action-potential thereby fundamentally casting doubt on the received assumptions regarding sensory perception in plant life per se.

Plant neurobiology as a separate discipline has been gathering momentum since the beginning of this century and is predicated upon further analogies between plant life and animals, for example, the connection between nerve-like structures in plants. The possibility of a form of intelligence has also been investigated, though the subject continues to be controversial among plant physiologists. During the nineteen sixties, experi-ments investigating electro-physiological signal processing and reactivity were at times also interpreted as parapsycholog-ical phenomena and gave rise to speculation about cellular awareness that connects all living organisms. Although experi-ments of this kind have stimulated increased curiosity and openness about, as well as respect for living organisms in general, they have also meant that plant neurobiology has been burdened with the stigma of esotericism.

“… how will you conduct yourself in the company of trees” tells a story of living matter and also the relationship between so-called qualified and unqualified scientific know-ledge. Furthermore, its narrative encompasses science when it engages with that very space in which thinking about our world can only occur as a kind of speculation. Nevertheless, the function of “… how will you conduct yourself in the company of

MEHREEN MURTAZA,… how will you conduct yourself in the company of trees, 2015-16

trees” is not merely metaphorical; inasmuch as the measurement of electrical impulses and activity is not expressed as actual values but is interpreted musically instead, a different form of aesthetic experience is made possible. It is not so much about the intellectual feat of abstraction in interpreting the values themselves but more about an immediate form of communi-cation via acoustic signals, as well as how we behave when plants respond to our presence and actions with sounds and music.

MEHREEN MURTAZA,… how will you conduct yourself in the company of trees, 2015-16 (Detail)

MADISON BYCROFT(b. 1987, AU)

Madison Bycroft’s “Rag of Cloth: Ode to the Vampire Squid” is inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu” which was written in 1928. The story is narrated by the great nephew of a recently deceased emeritus professor of Semitic languages; in his role as his great uncle’s heir and executor, the young and diligent anthropologist examines the late profes-sor’s papers and pieces together the whole horrifying truth of the myth surrounding the Cthulhu, an extraterrestrial entity venerated by a few widely dispersed groups and secret cults. Not unlike the Cthulhu, Madison Bycroft’s “Vampire Squid” is a fictional figure, despite being modelled on the eponymous vam-pire squid, a species of deep-sea cephalopod. Embodied and performed by the artist, the vampire squid feeds on words; the kind of words we use to try to describe the monstrous, to struc-ture our world, to differentiate and to create hierarchies. “Chthonic” means “in, under or beneath the earth” but also “subterranean”. Madison Bycroft’s “Chthonigœgigoog” operates with this lexical root and presents artefacts which are to be understood as suggestions or theories.

In one arrangement of objects Madison Bycroft cites the Bunyip, a creature referenced by many Indigenous Australian peoples, that dwelled in swamps, billabongs, riverbeds, creeks and water holes. When British settlers began to describe and classify the flora and fauna of Australia they followed a standardised and scientific procedure that privileged only what they saw. Singu-lar, white, colonial vision and epistemologies formed the basis of a knowledge with an ontological hierarchy that discredited anything outside of that. How might we imagine or decolonise our imaginary in regards to the unsaid, unseen creature? Using her “Taxonomy Table” the artist attempts a different form of classification. Fragments of text have been written in chalk on a black, stage-like platform. Sculptural elements made from clay sit on and around the platform and are connected diversely by ropes, tubes, rods, pipes and ducts provoking thoughts about an overarching ecological principle of the interconnectedness of all being. Ultimately, Madison Bycroft’s “Proposal for the Ineffable” lends the Bunyip and the indescribable in general one of many possible countenances.

A series of sculptures, some of which are mobile, invite one to move them around in the gallery space. “Lines” can be under-stood as a philosophical and at the same time a performative, spatial exercise geared towards describing boundaries and, quite literally, the drawing of lines. Based on Karen Barad’s ideas, they presuppose a dynamic world in which differentia-

MADISON BYCROFT, Chthonigœgigoog, 2016 (Detail)

tions always ever exist as a possibility. Furthermore, “Fulcrum” contemplates the condition of being wrapped in and by something. An oyster, for example, forms a pearl by coating a microscopic foreign body that has inadvertently entered the organism in layers of nacre.

MADISON BYCROFT, Rag of Cloth: Ode to the Vampire Squid, 2014–16 (Installation view)

MADISON BYCROFT, Lines, 2016, LIZA DIECKWISCH, Silikon, PVC Folie, Latex, Acryl, Glitter, Acrylglas, Kordel, 2016

MADISON BYCROFT, Fulcrum, 2016, LIZA DIECKWISCH, Digitaldruck, 2016

MADISON BYCROFT, Taxonomy Table and Proposal for the Ineffable, 2016LIZA DIECKWISCH, Pailletten- stoff, Stoff, Kunstleder, Stecknadel, 2016

LIZA DIECKWISCH, Silikon, PVC Folie, Latex, Acryl, Glitter,Acrylglas, Kordel, 2016

LIZA DIECKWISCH(b. 1989, D)

Liza Dieckwisch’s works for “Creatures of the Mud” are more closely aligned to the mud in the exhibition’s title than to the creatures. Material in origin, they suggest a synthetic organic life form in their structure and arrangement. Liza Dieckwisch’s compositions seem to feed upon a shared body out of which clear pictures emerge from time to time, only to be reabsorbed and fashioned into something new. This takes place in the form of an object resembling compost, in which fragments of sketch-like experiments and relics from earlier works embark upon a further phase of their cycle.

Alongside her activities as a visual artist, Dieckwisch experi-ments with terse lyrical statements. Her large-format work in the main hall is linked to a poem dealing with a possibility for conserving jellyfish. During this process, the fluid is removed from these water-filled cnidarians and replaced with synthetic material. The expansive work comprising different silicons conveys a sense or feeling of this material, taking on the appearance of an ambivalent and in parts, shimmering mass of slime.

The sequinned material provides a similarly ambivalent surface with a capacity to reflect light. A photograph of some bread dough conceals its true identity at first. Endowed with inter-stellar or planetary associations, the billowing dough with its bulging amplitude reveals itself by virtue of its characteris-tic adhesive property, in this instance by sticking to a glass bowl.

LIZA DIECKWISCH, Digitaldruck, 2016

tomorrow

my mother used to study jelly fishand yes, she even tried to conserve them you can’t can clouds and yes, it’s possible to drain the water from jellyfishbut swap their bodily fluids for synthetic stuff?

who are you without a pancreas? soon enough, quantum physics will cease to be a modern thing—that goes for you, too!

we’re still here though, pickled in the future.

LIZA DIECKWISCH, tomorrow, 2012

GABÓ BARTHA(b. 1969, HU)

Gabó Bartha’s contribution likewise introduces an earthy and ‘earthing’ dimension to the exhibition. As an art historian and a biodiversity activist, Gabó Bartha has been organising events and actions that intersect with visual art for a considerable time. A series of photographs from her archive depict food-stuffs from the wine region Tokaj in Hungary. Almost like a series of notes, the photographs on show document a conference on the topic of seeds, as well as pictures of artisan markets, seed-swap events, photographs of different and partly old vari-eties of fruit and vegetables. An important topic in the selec-tion of the photographs is a garden in Mád, Tokaj, that Bartha set up in 2011 as a kitchen garden for the ostensible purpose of self-sufficiency. Irrespective of their utility value, the plants in this garden were allowed to live through all the phases of their cycle. In this deregulated scheme of things, the existence and coexistence of the plants seemed to be more dignified than in other imaginable contexts. Large numbers of photographs document the encounter with diverse life forms in this garden and are clearly motivated by curiosity and wonder-ment, as well as by an interest in research and an aesthetic impulse.

Gabó Bartha often presents her photographs when giving talks. Each image represents an individual story about political and social entanglements, about biodiversity, as well as a garden-ing practice residing somewhere between permaculture, biody-namic and organic farming. The loose sequence of images pro-jected in the exhibition space take on a poetic dimension which, in turn, guarantees an insight into a way of living and unceasing research into our relationship to food and its pro-duction.

GABÓ BARTHA, Untitled (excerpts of an archive), 2010-16 (Frame)

GABÓ BARTHA, Untitled (excerpts of an archive), 2010-16 (Frame)

GABÓ BARTHA, Untitled (excerpts of an archive), 2010-16 (Installation view)

TUE GREENFORT (b. 1973, DK)

In a similar way to Gabó Bartha’s work, Tue Greenfort’s “Aasee Water Filtration” focuses upon a local phenomenon and at the same time it situates the exhibition in the context of the city. “Aasee Water Filtration” is one of the annual editions issued by the Westfälischer Kunstverein from 2007 deriving from Greenfort’s participation in the fourth edition of the Sculp-ture Projects that year. In the context of the exhibition, Greenfort focused on the pollution of the Aasee due to the growth of blue algae. The bacteria produce poisonous cytotoxins that can cause allergic reactions in humans and if swallowed, can be extremely harmful to internal organs. The spread and proliferation of blue algae is promoted by a raised concentra-tion of nutrients in the water. It is recognised that phos-phates and nitrates used in intensively fertilized arable farm-ing on an industrial scale run off into freshwater ecosystems. The thrust of the artist’s critique was as follows: in order to reduce the number of phosphates, EU-subsidised meat production and the highly intensified and industrialised agricultural production in the Münsterland region needed to be regulated. However, the causes of the problem weren’t addressed; instead, a cosmetic solution of sorts was arrived at by adding a sub-stance called Iron (III)-Chloride to bind free phosphates chem-ically in the river and restrict the growth of the algae. The sculptural implementation of his investigations and his open critique of political processes involved in decision-making were accompanied by an edition with an almost painterly per-spective. “Aasee Water Filtration” are paper filters bearing the traces of blue algae following the filtration process. They pose question of the current state of play ahead of the next Sculpture Projects Münster 2017.

TUE GREENFORT, Aasee Water Filtration, 2007

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

CONVERSATION WITH MADISON BYCROFT• Saturday, 21 May at 11am

GUIDED TOURS WITH LENA JOHANNA REISNER• Thursday, 2 June at 6pm• Sunday, 3 July at 2pmAdditional guided tours in German or English on request.

LATE FRIDAY • 10 June, open from 11am

to 10pm, admission free

The exhibition „Creatures of the Mud“ serves as an opportu-nity to reflect upon the finan-cial realities of art between public subsidisation, art market and interested public. On two dates relevant, topical texts are being discussed in the context of a reading group with guest curator Lena Johanna Reisner and Max Wigger. By this means questions are being raised concerning the value creation of visual art unattached of speculation and the art market. On another date in June philospher and art historian Dr. Philipp Kleinmichel picks up on the same discourse.

PLUGIN READING GROUP WITH LENA JOHANNA REISNER AND MAX WIGGER„Über die finanziellen Realitäten der Kunst“ (On the financial realities of art)• Wednesday, 1 June at 5pm• Wednesday, 15 June at 5pmTexts:Stefan Heidenreich: Free-portism as Style and Ideology: Post-Internet and Speculative Realism, Part 1 (e-flux Maga-zine, March 2016)Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen: Das Ende der ökonomischen Blase der zeitgenössischen Kunst (Texte zur Kunst, December 2012, issue 88)Please register via e-mail plugin@westfaelischer- kunstverein.deThe texts will be send to you after registration.

PLUGIN TALK WITH MIT DR. PHILIPP KLEINMICHEL (BERLIN)„Banalität und Offenbarung der finanziellen Realität der Kunst“ (Banality and revela-tion of the financial reality of art)• Wednesday, 22 June 7pmIn a lecture and subsequent conversation the philosopher and art historian Dr. Philipp Kleinmichel discusses art as a commodity in contrast to its aesthetic and symbolic form.

LIST OF EXHIBITED WORKS

GABÓ BARTHA01: Untitled (excerpts of an

archive), 2010-16 163 digital photos, projector

MADISON BYCROFT02: Lines, 2016

Steel, foam Four elements Dimensions variable

03: Fulcrum, 2016 Trolley, steel, fabric, copper, wood, paint three elements Dimensions variable

04: Chthonigœgigoog, 2016 Print on silk, acoustic isolation for floor co-vering, steel, concrete, plastic, paint, fabric, font by Viktor Timotheus Dimensions variable

05: Taxonomy Table, 2016 Wood, paint, chalk, fired and unfired stoneware, plaster, concrete, steel, plastic tube, rope Dimensions variable

06: Proposal for the Ineffable, 2016 Wire, unfired stoneware, perspex, wood, fabric, paint Dimensions variable

07: Rag of Cloth: Ode to the Vampire Squid, 2014-16 HD-video, 6:03 min., colour and sound

LIZA DIECKWISCH08: Acryl, Latex, Silikon,

Lametta, Plastikfolie, 2012-16 Acrylic, latex, silicone, tinsel, plastic film 50×12×25 cm

09: Silikon, PVC Folie, Latex, Acryl, Glitter, Acrylglas, Kordel, 2016 Silicone, PVC foil, la-tex, acrylic, glitter, acrylic glass, cord 730×370 cm

10: Digitaldruck, 2016 Digital print 81,5×105,5 cm

11: Paillettenstoff, Stoff, Kunstleder, Stecknadel, 2016 Sequin fabric, fabric, imitation lether, pin 250×180 cm

TUE GREENFORT12: Aasee Water Filtration,

no. 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of 12, 2007 Filterpaper, cyano- bacteria Diameter: 17 cm Edition Westfälischer Kunstverein, 2007

MEHREEN MURTAZA13: …how will you conduct

yourself in the company of trees, 2015-16 Soundinstallation with plants of the Botanical Garden of the University of Münster, microphone cable, arduino, crocodile clips, crimp pins, compu-ter, monitor, pallets, sheet steel tubs, bricks Dimensions variable

PLUGIN PLATTFORM, (2016-19)14: As part of the exhibition

“Creatures of the Mud” various editions by alumni of the artist residency programme at Schloss Ringenberg

(plugin-project.com) are on offer at the Westfäli-scher Kunstverein and in various other locations and shops in Münster, Enschede, Kleve, Nijme-gen, Düsseldorf, Arnhem and Hamminkeln. Among the artists are: Sebastian Bartel, Mattijs Brede-wold, Rita Kanne, Susanne Koheil & Günter Wintgens, Tamara Lorenz, Sebastian Ludwig, Ralph Merschmann, Christian Odzuck, David Scheidler, Gijs Verhoof-stad und Christoph Westermeier. The small-format editions are intended for a wider audience to provide access to artworks and thereby promote a diffe-rent form of collecting. The project prompts questions regarding the value creation of visual art, independent of speculation and the art market. They will be addressed in a public programme featuring a talk and discussion with Dr. Philipp Kleinmichel (Philosopher and art historian, Berlin) and a preparatory reading group.

Courtesy the artists

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